Social media has become a hugely influential part of marketing strategies. Platforms are continually changing, growing and evolving meaning it often becomes a minefield when trying to constantly navigate and update each one with the best and most effective content. With this, there are now many tools out there that are aimed at helping people create effective social media content and increase their engagement. In this post, we will offer you a look at my top three useful tools so that you can enhance your social media platforms.

It’s not long now before the Christmas period begins. However, many of you will know that particularly in the retail and hospitality industries, preparing for Christmas well in advance is key to securing a successful holiday period. As a small business, if you’re looking to join in on the action and be fruitful in selling more over the busy period, it is crucial that you learn to do the same. Planning is key. This post provides some key tips for coordinating your holiday marketing campaigns to secure Christmas time success.

Using social media as part of your marketing strategy can hugely increase awareness about your business, particularly within the hospitality industry, generating motivated engagement with your food and service, and get you more customers in your door. Following on from our last blog which was about using Facebook and Twitter. This article is here to offer you some more tips on how you can utilize social media within your marketing strategies for the hospitality industry. This time, we’re focusing on Instagram.

As social media becomes more and more prominent in marketing techniques, those in the hospitality sector, for instance, restaurants and cafés, are increasingly looking for ways to utilize this to encourage more customers to visit their businesses. Social media can be hugely powerful for attracting and maintaining good reputations and customer loyalties… if you know how.

Twitter is becoming an increasingly influential platform in the digital marketing world. Many businesses and individuals are turning to the social media site in order to find other businesses and delve deeper into what they have to offer. But with only 140 characters per tweet, how can you REALLY make an impression?

With the seemingly unstoppable rise of numerous social media platforms, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by which is which, what goes where, and so on. Many people become confused with regards to how each platform may be suitable for their brand, or how they can be used in their digital marketing plan. Instagram is one such platform that has gained significant popularity in recent years, providing a new, up and coming opportunity for greater exposure and utilisation within digital marketing.

I work with a lot of businesses helping them either by managing their social media for them or training them to use it more efficiently themselves. But I know there are still a lot of businesses that are still trying to decide whether to use social media and why it is important for their business.

If you feel like you’ve put your heart and soul into jumping on the social media bandwagon and setting up all those accounts, but aren’t entirely sure if they’re doing what you thought they would, it may be time for an audit. Conducting a social media review can help you take a closer look at your financial investments, audience, activity and results. This way you can assess whether your social media efforts are worthwhile, for instance whether you’re spending too much time on a platform that isn’t delivering the best results. Most importantly, it can help you work out what you’re doing on social media is still relevant to your current goals and objectives.

With pictures disappearing after 10 seconds, it’s easy to understand why Snapchat is often neglected as part of digital marketing strategies in comparison to the likes of Facebook and Twitter. However, despite not always being the most obvious, there are ways that you can utilise Snapchat as part of your social media marketing, boosting both followers and engagements for your business.

Social media can be a strong force for marketing your business and connecting with your target market. Between Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Snapchat, Instagram and numerous other social sites, it can be difficult to find the time to manage everything. You don't need to be present on everything, but staying active on the few social media platforms you choose can still be very time-consuming. Thankfully a number of tools are available to help us save time on social media by scheduling and automating content. You shouldn't become too reliant on these tools, however, or you'll risk turning into a social media zombie.